Firms warm to the FCA: trust rises, but the growth test is still ahead
The FCA's 2026 practitioner survey shows satisfaction, trust and confidence in the regulator all climbing, alongside a sharp jump in firms' understanding of the Secondary International Competitiveness and Growth Objective. For senior leaders, the numbers reset the terms of engagement with Stratford, but the Panel is already pushing for harder evidence that priorities are producing outcomes.
The FCA has rarely had a better set of scores from the firms it regulates. The 2026 FCA and Practitioner Panel survey, published on 2 October, shows 79% of firms are highly satisfied with their relationship with the regulator, up from 74% a year ago, with 76% rating it a highly effective regulator and 75% reporting high levels of trust (FCA). For an authority that spent much of the last decade absorbing criticism over Woodford, mini-bonds and the cost of Consumer Duty implementation, the shift in sentiment is material.
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What this reveals
The survey marks a shift in the terms of regulatory engagement: with 88% of firms claiming to understand Consumer Duty expectations and the Panel pushing for measurable outcomes, the FCA's next supervisory posture will be an evidence contest rather than an interpretation debate. Many leadership teams still assume their Consumer Duty narrative, built when ambiguity was a defence, will carry them through. That assumption has quietly expired. The broader issue is that firms often confuse understanding a regulator's expectations with being able to evidence that they are meeting them, and the gap only becomes visible under supervisory challenge.
Questions accountable leaders should ask
- 01If an FCA supervisor asked today for evidence that your Consumer Duty outcomes are genuinely improving, not just being monitored, what would you hand over, and would it withstand challenge?
- 02Where in your supervisory narrative are you still relying on 'the rules are unclear' as a defence, when the regulator now believes expectations are well understood?
- 03How well does your board distinguish between activity data (reports produced, reviews completed) and outcome data (what actually changed for customers)?
- 04Has your firm articulated, in writing, how its strategy aligns with the Secondary International Competitiveness and Growth Objective in a way that would survive scrutiny in an authorisation file or Section 166 response?
- 05If the Practitioner Panel's push for measurable regulator outcomes succeeds, are you prepared for supervisors to apply the same standard back to you?
What accountable leaders should do now
- 1Commission an internal audit of your Consumer Duty evidence base specifically against outcomes testing, fair-value reviews and data quality, treating interpretation as settled and evidence as the live question.
- 2Rework your board reporting so that outcomes (what changed for customers) are separated from activity (what the firm did), and ensure the board is challenging the former, not just noting the latter.
- 3Draft a concise internal position on how your strategy supports SICGO, so that competitiveness arguments can be deployed credibly and consistently in authorisation files, Section 166 responses and supervisory correspondence.
- 4Pressure-test your next supervisory conversation by asking a small group of independent reviewers to attack the firm's claimed outcomes using only the evidence currently in the board pack.
- 5Reset expectations with the executive committee that the supervisory environment has moved from policy debate to evidence contest, and reallocate second-line capacity accordingly.
Explore the practical guide
A practical guide to building Consumer Duty evidence that withstands board challenge and FCA scrutiny. After reading, you will know what good evidence looks like, where most firms fall short, and how to structure your annual board report so it earns trust rather than questions.
Read the guideWhere internal confidence may exceed external evidence
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